These messages will not show up on your phone but the sender will see the messages as sent. When you block a contact over Android or iPhone, they will still be able to send you text messages. We’ve broken the apps we’re covering into two broad groups.īlocking Someone on Android Messages and Apple iMessage We’ll describe how to check or change this setting for each app. That’s because if you have it enabled, the person you’ve blocked might quickly notice that you haven’t read any of their messages. Secondly, you might need to turn off read receipts. That will give you evidence of the harassment in case things escalate. From a safety perspective, it may also be better to mute someone rather than blocking them if they’re sending harassing messages. This will stop you from getting notifications when the other person sends a message, and some apps will put their messages in a separate folder or tab in the app.īut you’ll still be able to read their messages if you want to, so you can catch up on your sister’s food photos before giving her a phone call, even if you don’t want to see them every day. But first, here are two caveats.įirst, sometimes muting is better than blocking. I think they unblocked me after the testing, but for some apps I can’t be sure. I spent a week blocking and unblocking my Consumer Reports colleagues, and asking them to block me, to better understand how the feature works on seven different platforms. If you block someone, what does it look like to the sender? Whether you want to block someone in a stealthy way or an obvious one, you’ll need to know what happens on each platform or service. You’d rather not read them, but you want to avoid hurting the sender’s feelings.

This ambiguity might be an advantage with a casual acquaintance, like the person you met once at a potluck who keeps sending you news articles you’ve already seen. On other platforms, the sender might never know they’ve been blocked, though they may catch on when you never respond to their messages.

Go to messenger on my phone